


Ocean Eyes and Cutting Knives

by jarynw02



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alive Namikaze Minato, Big Brother Kakashi, Even if Fugaku is already trying to set up an arranged marriage, F/M, Family Fluff, Father-Daughter Relationship, Female Uzumaki Naruto, M/M, Minato adopts Kakashi, Minato and Kakashi are whipped by baby blue eyes, Namikaze Minato Adopts Hatake Kakashi, Namikaze Minato Lives, Naru is spoiled af, Protective Hatake Kakashi, Protective Namikaze Minato, Relationships to be determined, Sasuke is smitten with baby Naru, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, big brother obito, childhood fic, fem!naruto
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:06:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27548050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jarynw02/pseuds/jarynw02
Summary: Minato watches the… strange scene playing out in his living room.“Excuse me?!” Jiraiya guffaws, hands on his hips in unadulterated offense. He towers over the two boys before him, but they do not seem impressed, let alone intimidated.Obito points an accusatory finger in Minato’s sensei’s face. “You heard me! You can’t come anywhere near Naru-hime! I saw you being chased away by women in the village, you pervert!”Kakashi sharpens his glare from a step behind his teammate, turning himself, and therefore the birthday girl in his arms, further away from the Toad Sage. A one year old Naru watches the new face in the room with suspicion over Kakashi’s shoulder until he tucks her head beneath his chin. Then she resigns to her fate, happily cuddling up to the person she’s second most familiar to in the world, resting her cheek against Kakashi’s collar.It’s adorable.Minato considers coming to Jiraiya’s rescue, but instead starts looking for his camera.ORMy version of fem!Naruto growing up with the Yondaime and Kakashi-niisan. Eventually an OP fem!Naru paired either with Sasuke or Shisui.
Comments: 77
Kudos: 516





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here's more fem!Naru and family fluff from me, lmfao. 
> 
> This story was born from the idea of a teen fem!Naru navigating romance and marriage proposals with a handful of the strongest shinobi in Konoha watching over her like the overprotective fathers/brothers they are. 
> 
> Then I got swept up in her backstory and yeah. 
> 
> So the HOPE for this is that there will be two chapters of "Prologue" skimming through her childhood experiences (probably both in Minato's POV - like this one is) and then after that it's all teen drama and romance. That said, I have like eight ongoing fics so even if this stays being the 1-2 chapter prologue it's still some adorable kid fic fluff.
> 
> Oh yeah and I manipulated the ages of like, everyone lmfao I can put an age guide in later if anyone wants it.

**Prologue**

Naruto cries during Kushina’s funeral. 

The Sandaime gracefully ignores her from the podium, but all eyes are on Minato and the wailing baby in his arms standing alone beside the shrine and flowers on stage. He tries to rock her, to soothe her cries and check her over, but his  _ wife  _ should be here helping him with omnipotent maternal instinct and bright, goofy smiles but instead she’s  _ there  _ in the casket buried in lilies and chrysanthemums and he can’t  _ breathe _ . What kind of father is he if can’t even help his own daughter when she’s crying?

“Sensei,” a quiet voice whispers. 

Minato blinks away tears, the sight of two of his students’ concerned faces blending in with the crowd of his comrades below them coming into focus. He turns his head, Sarutobi-sama’s voice still holding steady in the back of his mind, and finds an only mildly uncomfortable looking Kakashi staring up at him. 

Kakashi, who’s lived with him since before Kushina moved in. 

The boy who lost his father three years ago. 

“I can take her,” he says, further extending his arms where they were already reaching out for the crying baby. 

Minato hesitates, suddenly terrified that without Naruto in his arms he’ll lose the last part of himself that’s holding it together, but Kakashi meets his eyes firmly. 

“I won’t let anything happen to her.”

Distantly, he nods, slowly relinquishing the baby to an eleven year old. 

If Kakashi is awkward with her, Minato doesn’t notice. The boy takes her away, but keeps her within Minato’s peripheral, meeting up with his two teammates off stage and a little further from the crowd where the three of them can fuss over what’s making Naruto upset. The Sandaime’s words ghost straight through him, breezing by with all the weightlessness of their worth compared to his own grief. He watches his team with Naruto until the speech is over and shinobi are lining up to offer their condolences. 

Time bleeds slow. 

When the procession is gone and his wife is in the ground, he seeks out Kakashi with poorly veiled despair and finds him uncharacteristically calm, all things considered. For a moment Minato can’t see Naruto and feels the first dose of rapid fire adrenaline surge through him, but then he spots the blue fabric wrapped around the boy’s chest with a pronounced lump sprouting a small tuft of blonde hair. Rin and Obito watch him carefully, comfortable enough around their sensei to be there, but uncomfortable enough not to say anything. 

Kakashi drags his eyes away from the quiet baby bundled away against him to blink up at Minato. “Mikoto-san brought it,” he says. “She thought you would like it.”

Minato feels his lips twitch, like he might almost smile.

He doesn’t.

But he raises a hand to cord through Kakashi’s wild, perpetually wind-whipped hair.

“Thanks, Kakashi.”

  
  
  
  


A month later and he’s slowly building a new rhythm to life. 

“Breakfast?” Kakashi calls from the kitchen.

Minato tucks in the last fold of little Naru-chan’s wrap above his waist and kisses her hair before answering, “Bring it with us.”

“Oi! Where’s mine?!”

A crash sounds just before Minato steps out of his bedroom he now shares with his calm, happy baby. She’s hardly cried since the funeral. It’s bittersweet. 

“You don’t get any.” Kakashi doesn’t look up at Obito over the kitchen table, instead concentrating on sorting their breakfast into packs similar to the bentos they’ll have for lunch. Though the interaction isn’t quite friendly, it’s a massive stride in the right direction for the two boys that their  _ death scare  _ mission inspired nearly a year ago, leaving its scars on the two inside and out. Still, Kakashi cuts off Obito’s next protest. “Aren’t you supposed to be reporting to Fugaku-sama soon?”

“Well,  _ yeah _ , but!” Obito argues, his hands pressed firmly on the table opposite his now-once teammate. “There’s always time for breakfast!” 

Kakashi quirks his head but doesn’t look up. “Oh? I didn’t realize my onigiri looked like little old ladies that needed help crossing the street.”

“ _ Hey! _ ” 

“Boys, boys,” Minato says, interrupting them and bringing both of their full attention straight to him. “Kakashi, Obito can have one of my onigiri,” he starts, turning toward the elder of the two, “but then you need to hurry to the police station. You need to be on time to work with the chief.”

The boys grumble and comply, Obito sprinting down the road away from them with a mouth full of rice and a flashy wave back to them when Minato and Kakashi set out for the Hokage tower. They’re both dressed in full shinobi gear despite the oversized pack slung over Kakashi’s shoulder, full of meals and baby supplies, and the sleeping baby herself wrapped securely to Minato’s chest. 

“You know, Kakashi,” Minato says idly as they cross through the village. “I was going to wait until we got there to be more official, but…” 

The two of them slow, and then they stop. 

One curious gray eye looks up at him, the other tucked away behind his hitae-ate like a precious secret. 

“I wanted to offer you a job-- a long term position.”

“Oh?”

“As Naru-chan’s personal guard.”

The silence is much more brief than Minato had imagined it would be. 

“Yes.”

  
  
  
  


After nearly four months of haggling, Minato convinces Tsunade to return to the village and have her way with their hospital and all that it entails, including the med nin program. After one month back home, Tsunade uncovers her old teammate’s gruesome exploits. After a single skirmish between the two of them, Orochimaru confides in her where it all began.

Rather, who began the  _ child experimentation project  _ in the first place. 

Minato doesn’t dare call upon the entire council. He meets with only his most trusted, Naruto safely in her sling across his middle, at Shikaku’s house and they plot. One week later, the plan commences. 

It takes two hours for Minato to kill Danzo and, without bothering to explain his actions to anyone not already in the know just yet, make his way to the old Hatake compound. When he throws open the front door Naru-chan is sitting up on her own on the floor with a twelve year old Kakashi and a pug puppy. 

He ignores the dog  _ talking  _ to scoop her up and hold her close, wary of any stray bits of blood that might still linger on his undershirt. She lays a tiny hand on his cheek, blinking at him with crystal eyes that mirror his own. 

Then she cheers, a bizarre, squealy sound. 

He kisses her hair, glad to be able to breathe again. 

  
  
  
  


Minato watches the… strange scene playing out in his living room. 

“ _ Excuse me?! _ ” Jiraiya guffaws, hands on his hips in unadulterated offense. He towers over the two boys before him, but they do not seem impressed, let alone intimidated. 

Obito points an accusatory finger in Minato’s sensei’s face. “You heard me! You can’t come anywhere near Naru-hime! I saw you being chased away by women in the village, you pervert!” 

Kakashi sharpens his glare from a step behind his teammate, turning himself, and therefore the birthday girl in his arms, further away from the Toad Sage. A one year old Naru watches the new face in the room with suspicion over Kakashi’s shoulder until he tucks her head beneath his chin. Then she resigns to her fate, happily cuddling up to the person she’s second most familiar to in the world, resting her cheek against Kakashi’s collar. 

It’s  _ adorable _ . 

Minato considers coming to Jiraiya’s rescue, but instead starts looking for his camera. 

  
  
  
  


Obito throws open the door to the Hokage office with abandon, a grin on his lips, and a skip in his step. 

Minato’s eyes raise from his paperwork to his eighteen month old daughter, fast asleep on a thirteen year old Kakashi’s chest where the two of them are laying on the office couch while Kakashi reads a book. He already sensed his old student’s incoming presence, but had carelessly expected him to make an average entrance. 

Kakashi glowers at his teammate, but does not move until he’s content that Naru won’t be waking up from her afternoon nap. He settles back into his novel while Obito approaches Minato with arms spread wide.

Minato narrows a look in Obito’s direction and, mercifully, the boy manages to keep his voice at a normal volume. 

“Sensei!” he grins, smug as he casts a quick glance behind him. “I come with a guest.”

“I know,” Minato answers, voice tired. He runs a hand through his hair idly. “Come on in, Fugaku-dono.”

The head of the Uchiha clan enters stoically, his gaze lingering for a moment on Naru and Kakashi before dipping his chin in a bow to the Hokage. 

Minato pulls a polite smile to his face. “What can I do for you that’s urgent enough to use my student as a free pass into my office?”

“Nah,” Obito waves a casual hand that makes Kakashi glare at him from behind the pages of his book. “It was my idea, Sensei. Fugaku-sama brought up something he wanted to talk to you about at the station and I told him it was no biggie for us to pop in.”

After an indulgent moment of exasperation passes where Minato simply watches his loudest student, he sighs. “Alright then.” He turns to Fugaku. “What is it?”

“Hokage-sama, my family would like to invite you and your daughter over for dinner.”

Minato quirks his head. “That’s what this is about?”

“Ah,” Fugaku says. 

For a moment, Minato is genuinely speechless before he gathers himself. “Kakashi must also attend. He’s Naruto’s guard. And he’s family.”

Fugaku meets Minato’s eyes and a breath passes before, “Very well.”

The two Uchiha leave as quickly as they came and neither Minato nor Kakashi broach the subject again until they’re leaving the house that evening to walk over to the Uchiha compound. The wrap Mikoto gave him a year and a half ago is tied low around Minato’s waist, two thick sections ribboned over his shoulders to hold Naru in a seat against his front. 

She bounces as they walk, reaching to the side with all her small might. “Ka’shi! Ka’shi! Up!”

Kakashi turns to her with gentle, though low lidded, eyes. “Not now, Naru-chan. We’re on a mission.”

“Mish!” she cheers, kicking her legs on Minato’s sides. He raises a hand against her back in a reflex, despite all the time spent trusting the wrap to hold her to him. She grins up at him, showcasing her handful of tiny teeth. 

He smiles back, moving his hand up to brush over her loose hair. “Yes, Naru. We’re going to dinner at Fugaku-dono and Mikoto-san’s house. Mikoto-san was a friend of your mother.”

“Food! Food! Foooood~!” 

Minato snorts and he doesn’t miss the huff of breath coming from Kakashi either. 

When they get to the Clan Head’s home, a small boy answers the door with hair longer than Naru’s. Minato and Kakashi blink down at him. 

The little boy bows deeply. “Hokage-sama. Kakashi-san.”

Naru squeaks indignantly. 

“Ah, um, Naruto-sama...” He straightens. “My name is Itachi. Mother is just about to finish cooking. Please, come inside.”

After an hour of somewhat awkward silence and eating the Uchiha matriarch’s  _ delicious  _ cooking, Minato starts to notice a pattern in what little conversation the group has managed to carry. 

“Forgive me, Fugaku-dono, Mikoto-san,” Minato says, glancing briefly over to where Naru has wiggled her way onto Kakashi’s lap to steal some of his food. “But was the purpose of this dinner… to entertain the children?”

On cue, an almost two year old Sasuke leans into Kakashi’s personal space to study Naru. When she notices his closeness, she turns and the two toddlers stare at each other while the adults hold their breath and Kakashi’s eyes widen like he’s looking down at a bomb about to go off in his lap. 

Then Naru smiles. “Hi!” 

Sasuke frowns, watching her for a moment longer, before looking over his shoulder at a five year old Itachi behind him. Once given a nod from his brother, Sasuke pulls himself to his feet, grabs Naru’s hand and drags her out of Kakashi’s lap.

Luckily, she laughs and goes along willingly. 

Mikoto lets out a short, dry chuckle. “Ah, well, you see, it was my idea, Hokage-sama. I thought it might be nice for Naruto-sama and Sasuke to have a few chances to… well, play together. You know, be friends.”

“Friends,” Minato repeats, watching his daughter laugh as she breaks free from the Uchiha boy’s grip and runs away on slow, unsteady feet.

They stay for another hour and by the time they leave, Kakashi is just as entranced in watching Naru interact with babies her own age as he is. 

The next day Minato finds himself sending out a summons for Shikaku Nara, Inoichi Yamanaka, and Hiashi Hyuuga.

_ Playdates _ .

Huh.

  
  
  
  


“-from the academy to the shinobi funds, then we could potentially add another two dozen training grounds-”

Minato taps his thigh beneath the table, poker face firmly in place as he zones in and out of listening to the budget meeting currently being presented before him. His focus, however, is being demanded elsewhere. 

There’s a certain rogue chakra, untamed and turbulent, approaching the tower at a much quicker pace than it has any right to. Though, considering the tension in Kakashi’s chakra so close that he could mentally stir them together with a spoon, it’s not impossible. Without even considering what he’s interrupting, Minato finally relents to his worries and raises a hand in a quick sign beside his seat, hidden from view. 

An Anbu appears at his side immediately and the current speaker of the meeting falters a bit, before hesitantly continuing when Minato doesn’t address him. 

In two more signs from the Hokage’s hand, his Anbu is gone. 

_ Naruto. Investigate. _

Settling back into himself, Minato realizes it’s Homura speaking. 

He pretends to listen all the while paying extraordinary care to the two incoming chakras. 

When the Anbu returns, he flashes to Minato’s side and gives one sign.

_ Urgent. _

Minato doesn’t regard his council in the slightest. With one burst of concentrated chakra, he disappears from the conference room completely, reappearing in his office where a thirteen year old Kakashi is  _ barely  _ hanging on to a flailing, sobbing,  _ screaming _ two year old Naru. Panic lances through him, sharper than any blade from the war, and he reaches for her on an instinct, assessing her for injuries. 

She blinks away fat tears.

Real tears. 

Not tantrum tears, which both he and Kakashi are familiar with despite her generally cheerful nature. 

But real, fat tears are rolling down his baby’s face over red-splotchy skin. 

He clings to her.

“Naruto, what’s wrong? What is it?” he asks quickly, too quickly. “Where does it hurt?”

In his peripheral, he sees Kakashi make some kind of face, but he can’t pull his attention from his daughter to notice until she softens in his arms, calming down before pressing her face into his chest.

“I want  _ Tou-san _ .”

Minato blinks. 

Then he finally looks up at Kakashi who winces and takes a deep breath. 

“She… misses you,” he says finally. 

Minato blinks again before the words register and he crumples, dragging himself over to the couch in his office to let Naru curl up completely against him. When he realizes she’s still hiccuping through the end of her cries, he rubs a hand over her back in soothing circles. 

“Oh, Naru,” he whispers, bending to press his mouth against her thick hair. “I’m sorry. Tou-san has been busy with work lately, huh?”

She doesn’t answer and doesn’t come out from where she’s buried herself into his shirt. 

His heart sinks. 

Naru is such a happy child. She’s all laughter and smiles and good spirits, completely content even in Kakashi’s somewhat dry presence and totally unafraid of all her new little friends and even their powerful shinobi parents. She rarely cries, rarely even complains or whines, which, thanks to all the play dates, he now knows is rare for a toddler. 

To hear and  _ feel  _ her genuine heartache over his absence…

There’s a brief second he considers hanging up the hat. 

But he dismisses the thought just as quickly.

“Hey,” he says softly, stroking a hand over her hair and waiting until red-rimmed ocean eyes peer up at him. “How about I’ll let you come to work with me more often again,” hope sparks in her eyes and they widen, “but  _ only  _ if you can be good. You’ll have to be quiet when others are around and it’s not just me and Kakashi.”

She nods eagerly, frantically,  _ quietly  _ into his chest. 

He sighs.

“You promise?”

Her voice is small and still sad from crying when she answers.

“Promise.”

Then Minato leads the three of them, Naru still in his arms, back into the conference room the long way, still forgoing the Hiraishin at Naru’s age. The Anbu he left behind melts back into the shadows of the room from where he was holding his Hokage’s place and Kakashi joins him to keep watch. The council quiets as he enters, the silence growing more and more disturbing as he sits, perfectly happy to ignore their obvious curiosity over the toddler clinging to him for dear life. 

When he relaxes into his chair, Naru drops one arm, leaving the other looped over his neck, and presses her cheek into his chest to discreetly peer out at all the faces around them. 

“My apologies for the interruption. It was urgent. Please continue.”

There’s a delay and a not-so-subtle clearing of a throat before talk of budgets and allocations of funds resumes, but the meeting proceeds nevertheless. 

And Naru is quiet and, mostly, still throughout it all. 

  
  
  
  


When Naru turns three Minato asks himself if it’s a coincidence that Obito is at their house just in time for Jiraiya to arrive. The backdoor behind him is open, leaving room for echoes of a small, giggly voice chanting  _ Nii-san! Nii-san!  _ as a fourteen year old Kakashi carts Naru around on his back while fleeing from his growing pack of ninken to drift inside. 

In front of him is a standoff. 

Sixteen year old Obito has hit a growth spurt, almost reaching Minato’s height and, therefore, is closing the gap on the Sannin before him. The Uchiha drags his single eye over the traveling spy, Jiraiya doing the same in return and Minato is grateful that despite their shared intensity, not an ounce of killing intent is leaking into his kitchen. 

The cake isn’t finished baking. 

“So,” Obito says, breaking the silence, “you’re back.”

Jiraiya narrows his eyes down at the boy. “Of course I am. It’s Naruto’s birthday.”

“Naru-hime prefers to be called  _ Naru _ ,” Obito snaps, raising his chin. “You’d know that if you were around her more instead of wasting your time peeping on innocent women.”

“Oh so you think you’re a gentleman, eh?” Jiraiya rebuts while Minato turns back to the stove and stirs the broth for his ramen in the kitchen. He’s followed Kushina’s old recipe very carefully and is quite proud of himself, to be honest. 

“No,” Obito says. “I think I’m  _ family _ .”

Minato’s hand pauses, wooden spoon frozen in place. He sighs, debating whether breaking up their fight is worth potentially damaging Naru’s birthday ramen.

No, probably not. 

He keeps stirring. 

“And I think you’re just some old pervert who pops in when he feels like it!” Obito bites out, his voice rising. “Tell me, did Naru-hime  _ invite  _ you? Because she invited me personally!”

There’s a pause and for a moment, Minato considers whether Obito might have actually struck a nerve with his sensei. Sure, Minato misses having Jiraiya around more often, but he’s always known of the Toad Sage’s wandering tendencies as well as his spy network. They even wandered together at times during his training back in the day. Still, Minato has never really stopped to think about Naru’s opinion on Jiraiya. 

Even then, Jiraiya  _ is  _ family, whether Obito agrees or not. 

“Alright,  _ brat _ ,” Jiraiya says finally and Minato drops his spoon at that tone, quickly escaping the kitchen to join them in the living room. But Jiraiya has already started. “You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. I’m the girl’s-”

“Obi-kun! Obi-kun!” 

All three of them turn their heads to the backdoor to see Kakashi being dragged by the hand behind a wide eyed toddler that walks with surer footing every day. Naru’s hair gleams golden in the late morning sun, her eyes sparkling as she darts away from her  _ nii-san  _ to Obito, whose demeanor changes like the flip of a switch. 

Obito crouches to catch Naru as she runs for him, throwing her up in the air, to her delight, before spinning her in a quick circle. “Well if it isn’t Naru-hime the birthday girl!” he cheers.

Naru shines under Obito’s attention. “Obi! Obi! Nii-san and me played with puppies!” 

“Puppies?!” Obito gasps and Naru nods her head vehemently.

“Yes! Yes! Puppies!” 

“Well,” Obito drawls out dramatically, “we both know how much Kakashi loves puppies.  _ And  _ I know that princesses don’t lie. So I believe you.”

Naru laughs, her voice like a scratchy bell that always softens Minato at the sound.

She sounds like Kushina. 

Naru looks back at Kakashi with pure  _ joy  _ on her face and even Kakashi gives her a smile in return, one that crinkles his only visible eye. But then Naru finally spots the newcomer to the group. 

Her head tilts and Minato sees the words blooming in her mind before she says them out loud. 

“Who’s that, Tou-san?”

She looks back at Minato with all the innocence in the world, completely missing the twin glares the Sannin receives from Kakashi and Obito. Minato can’t even bring himself to be glad they’ve found something to agree on. Instead, he ventures a glance at Jiraiya, catching the stiff, unusual look on his face, before answering her.

“That’s Jiraiya-sensei, Naru. He was my teacher. He always comes to your birthdays.”

Naru accepts her father’s word as absolute truth. “Oh.” She faces the Sannin. “Hiya ‘Raiya-sensei!”

Her eyes widen at her accidental rhyme and she quickly looks to Obito, who is still holding her on his hip, to confirm her success. He laughs with her, applauding how cute she is while Kakashi sneaks in to tell her that was a rhyme and what that means. Jiraiya doesn’t move, but it takes a while for him to come back into himself. Eventually Rin arrives with Tsunade and Shizune in tow, the female Sannin quick to snap her teammate back into his usual graces, or lack thereof. 

Minato invited all Naru’s playmates and they come, along with their parents: Sasuke and Itachi with Mikoto, Shikamaru with Shikaku and Yoshino, Ino with Inoichi, and Hinata with Hiashi. Sarutobi-sama stops by for a while, dealing with Naru’s prolific use of her  _ jiji  _ nickname for him. Even Genma, the head of Minato’s personal Hokage Anbu guard, sneaks in to congratulate the three year old on growing another year wiser. Naru finds his appearance completely mystical, having only seen him with his mask on before then during all her  _ borderline excessive  _ time spent with Minato during his workdays. 

Her gifts range from adorably small kimonos to wooden ninja tools, but she boldly declares her favorite to be Kakashi’s, though Minato already knows that she asked for this gift personally. She begs the fourteen year old jonin to help her put it on and spends the rest of her party wearing a mask identical to Kakashi’s. 

Well, identical aside from all the cake frosting smeared into the edge from when she’d barely remember to pull it down enough to inhale another piece. 

When things wind down, the guests all take their leave, trickling out until even Obito parts with his precious Naru-hime. The last to leave is Jiraiya, though Minato has already started digging through his cabinets for a bottle of sake, predicting his mentor’s mood. Naru falls asleep on the couch listening to Kakashi explain to her what each of her new wooden ninja tools are and Minato wordlessly asks him to take her to bed with a gesture. 

When Minato and Jiraiya are alone and three cups of sake in, Jiraiya finally speaks. 

“You know, I think I’ll stay a little while longer this time.”

  
  
  
  


“No,” Minato hears himself say. “Absolutely not.”

This is it.

His worst fears have finally started to rear their ugly head. 

“It was only a curiosity, Hokage-sama,” Fugaku says, his voice flat and dull as always. “I know she’s fond of both my sons. Sasuke, especially.”

“I- That’s not-” Minato stutters, wondering where he’s managed to go wrong in a little more than three years of fatherhood. 

Flashes of Naru racing Sasuke through the Uchiha’s garden, with Kakashi at the starting line and Itachi at the finish, come to his mind. Of Naru screeching with glee when she saw Sasuke and Itachi come into their home for her birthday. Of Naru begging to bring her wooden kunai over to the Uchiha head’s home during their last three playdates and him finally giving in on this one. 

If Kushina was here, she’d already have been screaming enough to work herself red in the face, politics aside. She was never one to care much about status, aside from her dream to take the hat away from him. Putting Fugaku Uchiha in his place would just be a side note on her to do list for a day like today. 

Minato lets himself drag a hand down his face, looking toward the open screen door of Fugaku’s sitting room. Kakashi is down on his knees, talking through a clumsy kata with Naru while a seven year old chunin Itachi circles his own younger sibling doing the same. 

Naru catches Minato watching her and manages to hold her pose, but breaks into a bright grin for him. 

Minato grins back before turning to Fugaku and sighing. 

“No,” he says again. “I have not considered any sort of arranged marriage, nor will I ever, Fugaku-dono.”

  
  
  
  


When Naru is four Minato takes her out of the village for the first time. 

It’s a risk, but with Kakashi coming along, Minato can hardly think of a safer place for her to be. He sneaks a glance over at his freshly turned sixteen year old student that now stands just as tall as Minato, even shooting up past Obito, much to the Uchiha’s grief. Naru is settled on his back, asking him hushed questions about their location directly into his ear that the boy answers just as quietly. 

Kakashi’s training took a backseat for the first few years of Naru’s life, much like Minato’s, but as she’s grown more graceful and self aware, both men have decided to let her tag along to some of their training, both together and separately. After reconnecting with Maito Gai in the last year as well as closing the ever-changing gap in his friendship with Obito, Kakashi is now in tiptop shape. He’s always been well above his peers and even now Minato would likely still ask him to be on the Hokage guard if he ever stops being Naru’s personal guard. 

Minato tries not to selfishly hope that day will never come. 

He’s a smart man. He’s aware of the possibilities. 

He also comforts himself with the knowledge that Kakashi will always belong in their family. 

The Sand Village is small and poor, but it’s strengths are nothing to laugh at. They’re led through the desert streets by an entourage of Sand shinobi, easily outnumbering Minato’s four guards along for the journey with Kakashi and Naru in tow. The Kazekage waits for them at the equivalent of his own Hokage tower and the guards disperse around him as they enter. 

Naru slides off Kakashi’s back and moves to stand between him and Minato, though one of the Hokage guards is too close to Minato’s side to completely allow it. She looks up at him with bright eyes and smiles, silently reminding him that she remembers to be quiet if she’s allowed around her father’s work. Minato smiles back and when Kakashi snatches up her hand to keep her near, Minato refocuses on the Kazekage. 

The meeting is brief, centered on confirming an alliance between the two villages and it moves on smoothly as can be expected. All the while, Naru stays still in her conference chair between Kakashi and Genma to Minato’s right. The Kazekage folds his hands over the tabletop, ready to dismiss the group for the day and the Leaf convoy to their devices, when there’s a sudden roaring chakra rising outside. 

Minato eyes the Kazekage, Rasa, as his Anbu guards all snap to their feet. “A disturbance?” he asks in a calm voice as Kakashi fiercely picks up Naru and holds her close. 

A crash sounds and there’s obvious movement outside, even the softest traces of shinobi footfalls in the hall outside the door. 

Minato’s guards do not flinch or panic, the four of them together, as well as Minato by himself, completely able to escape the situation with a flare of chakra. Through practice, Minato doesn’t reach out for Naru, all their security formations confirming Kakashi’s priority will always be on the Hokage’s daughter, only to be given to Minato in an extreme case that requires the younger to fight while the Namikazes flee. 

“Ah, well,” Rasa says, sounding almost sheepish were it not for the innate steel in the rather dry other man. “I was hoping to bring this up to you by the end of the week, if I’m being frank, but I was also hoping for better circumstances.”

Minato raises a brow. “And what circumstances are we in now?”

Rasa’s explanation of his volatile youngest son is clipped and brief, and while Minato can understand the veil of fear and uncertainty behind a faulty seal on a jinchuriki, he does not understand the lack of compassion for the man’s son. He pointedly frowns at the other man as they all take to the streets, following the storm of sand to the east until a small boy appears at its center. 

He’s surrounded by shinobi, all trying and failing to enter the torrent. 

Minato gestures to Genma who pops a new senbon into his mouth and shoots it into the fray. It’s destroyed in an instant. The Hokage hums to himself, feeling Rasa’s flickering side glances. The two of them contemplate ideas to minimize damages and break through the bijuu’s leaking chakra. 

Neither of them notice when Kakashi and Naru join the group. Minato sees just as Naru leans all her weight away from her keeper, gasping at the scene below as Kakashi mutters a few choice curses. Before Kakashi can retreat, realizing his mistake, Naru shouts, loud as the winds. 

“ _ Wow!  _ You’re so cool!”

The chakra stutters and Minato pauses, only finding brief humor in the Kazekage’s parted lips. Minato approaches Kakashi and reaches out for his daughter who readily switches into his arms. With a purposeful glance at the hidden three pronged kunai on Kakashi’s person, he takes his daughter closer to the fray. 

“See that boy?” Minato says and Naru nods, her blonde hair whipping up in the uncertain wind. “He’s your age and he’s scared.”

Her eyes widen and she stares at the little boy. She tries to wiggle out of Minato’s grip, but he holds her to him, willing to try this out but not willing to leave her that vulnerable. 

Naru is virtually undeterred. “Hey! Hey you!”

The wind rages on, but after a few seconds, the boy’s dark-ringed eyes raise to the two of them. Fury crumples across his young features and he shouts, “Leave me  _ alone! _ ”

Naru frowns. “No, that’s dumb! Come play with me! Let’s get out of the wind!”

The boy freezes, a vortex of sand and wind tightening around him, but dispersing everywhere else. Distantly, Minato is aware of their audience, but his attention is on protecting his daughter while trying to let a child breakthrough to another child. 

Finally, a single word reaches them through the chaos. 

“Play?”

Naru beams, throwing her hands out wide and leaning into Minato for balance. “Yeah! Let’s go play! I’m Naru Namikaze, dattebayo! Who’re you?”

The chakra starts to recede, the energy visibly bleeding out of the once enraged, now startled, little boy. 

“My name?”

“Yeah, silly. I got’a know your name if we’re gonna be friends!”

The entire village stills when the wind ceases, sand raining down in surrender revealing another little four year old with wide, terrified eyes. Minato approaches the redhead slowly, prepared to Hiraishin at a moment’s notice, until he’s close enough to crouch before the boy. He settles Naru on her feet, but holds her back against his chest, surrounded by his arms. 

“So?” Naru asks, grinning. “What’s your name?”

The boy blinks up at her — and  _ there’s  _ a novelty, someone smaller than Naru — and Minato can see the moment his eyes shift from terror into worship. 

“Gaara.”

Naru pumps a fist in the air. “Yosh! Hi Gaara! Nice to meet you!”

Gaara nods to her silently, still observing Minato’s daughter with reverent eyes. 

Minato sighs. 

He explains to them both, as simply as possible, that he needs to help Gaara with his seal before they can play and after spending the rest of his day neck deep in fuinjutsu, he finally deems Gaara safe from the imprisoned bijuu inside him. 

Kakashi and Naru don’t attend anymore meetings throughout the trip. Instead, Naru follows —  _ drags  _ — Gaara through the Sand Village streets and when they leave she cheerfully announces their new best-friendship to both himself and the Kazekage. 

Gaara just nods, watching her in wonder. 

  
  
  
  


Naru is upset with him. 

It’s an inevitability that’s happened once or twice before, but for the most part Naru has always proceeded through life steadily according to Minato’s words. She’s always listened to himself and Kakashi with an easy obedience that comes from a deep trust that has brought a sheen to Minato’s eyes on multiple occasions. 

Now, however, she’s sequestered herself into her room after barely touching her dinner and completely refusing any of Minato’s subtle attempts to talk to her about what’s bothering her. Kakashi left for some late night training after Minato had come home from work, leaving the two of them alone. Normally, they would take to some studying after dinner. Naru likes to peruse through his sealing notes while he sifts through the mild amount of paperwork he’s started bringing home with him in order to spend more time with his daughter. 

He taps his finger on the wood of their kitchen table, eyes flickering out the kitchen window, vaguely sensing the Anbu guard always on alert around both himself and Naru. Hiding from his daughter is a coward’s move. She’s only five. Now isn’t the time to suddenly abandon his spine, though if there’s anyone in the elemental nations who doesn’t give a damn about the flee on sight order he still has, it’s the little blonde haired blue eyed girl locked up in her bedroom. 

He sighs and stands. The closer he comes to her door, the more he feels the timid twitching of her monstrous chakra supply. Frowning, and suddenly in much more of a hurry, he taps on her door. 

Is she…

“Naru?”

She doesn’t answer him and his worries multiply. He calls out to her again, coupling the words with a few additional knocks before he simply opens the door. 

The room is dark, as dark as it can be in the early evening light, and there’s a lump beneath her haphazard covers on her bed. Minato clenches his teeth, still hoping she’s not-

But then he hears the sniffling and he’s propping himself on the edge of her bed in an instant, running a hand over her hair. She stays beneath the blanket, her body racking softly and he aches at the sight. 

“Naru, what’s wrong?” he whispers,  _ pleads  _ to his small, young daughter-- his whole world. “Please, talk to me.”

There’s a pause and she noticeably sucks down her tears before peeking filmy blue eyes up at him over the cusp of her covers. 

“You want to send Nii-san away.”

His brain short circuits for a moment before he realizes what she must be talking about. 

“Oh, Naru, no,” he says, petting her hair away from her face with gentle fingers. “Did you hear us this morning?”

She nods, refusing to look him in the eyes again. 

He takes a deep breath, scanning her side table and the framed picture of the three of them at her third birthday party. 

“For a shinobi most long term missions don’t last longer than a year,” he starts, trying to explain the situation to her fully. “Kakashi has been your personal guard for five. I just wanted him to know that he has options if he would ever like a change.”

He makes the mistake of looking back at her in time to see her face crumple in agony. “Kashi-nii is my brother,” she says quietly, more tears brimming in her red-rimmed eyes. 

Minato leans down, frowning with an empathy that leaves him feeling completely vulnerable. “I know, Naru. Him taking a new shinobi mission will never change that.”

She stares at her pillow, tracks of tears falling across her cheeks.

After a long silence, she speaks again.

“I don’t want him to go.”

Minato  _ hurts _ . 

But she needs to understand this now. 

“I know,” he says. “I don’t want him to go either.  _ But  _ I always want him to be happy, just like I’ll always want you to be happy. If he decides to take a new mission, to move off on his own and be independent, then we should support him.” After she brings a small fist up to rub at her face, he decides to add, “And we’ll always let him know he has a home and a family to come back to.”

She nods then and, after a brief hesitation, rises to throw her arms around Minato and it’s like he can finally breathe again. He holds her close while she lets out a few last cries until she centers herself and pulls away. 

“If- if Nii-san moves somewhere else, can I have sleepovers with him?”

Minato smiles softly. “Of course.”

“Okay,” she weakly relents, but Minato’s smile grows a little. 

“Did you hear the end of our conversation, Naru?” 

Her eyes widen and she perks up, looking at him curiously. 

“It seems you left your little  _ eavesdropping _ ,” he punctuates the word with a poke to her nose and she has the grace to blush, “before you could hear Kakashi’s response.”

“What did he say?”

This time, when he smiles at her completely, he can see the edges of her own lips responding, naturally trying to mirror his new attitude. 

“Kakashi was quite offended that I thought he might want to leave his imouto and I behind,” he says and her lips part, fresh tears in her eyes once more. “He says he’ll remain your guard until you or I ask him to stop.” He wipes away her cries with a thumb on her cheek. “Kakashi isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, Naru.”

She cheers, actually  _ cheers,  _ with a full scream that sends Anbu inside to check on them. Once Minato dismisses them with a wave, the two of them have a second dinner together and when morning comes, Naru tackles Kakashi in the kitchen and refuses to leave his side through breakfast. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol so my two part prologue has become a three part prologue... forgive me. 
> 
> these are the academy days!
> 
> part three will be post graduation through the teenaged years where the story will pick up in Naru's POV with no time skips. 
> 
> the debate for sasuke or shisui is still on, but i will say i am currently leaning toward shisui

**Prologue - Part Two**

  
  
  


“You guys are way too tense.”

Minato blinks at Rin, breaking the stupor he was in while watching her brush his daughter’s long, blonde hair. Her and Obito were in Minato’s living room with Kakashi by dawn, Minato already rushing through cooking breakfast by then. Naru was the last to join them, sleepily going through the motions of her morning routine until Rin asked if she could do the young girl’s hair.

Because it’s Naru’s first day at the Academy. 

“We’re really not, Rin!” Obito says from beside him. “We are just…”

“Excited,” Kakashi says dryly from Minato’s other side.

“Yes! Excited! It’s Naru-hime’s first day of school. We are allowed to be excited!”

Rin pauses in the middle of the braid Naru asked her for and gives the three of them a weary look over her shoulder. “Excited, huh? Is that why you’re hovering?”

“We’re not hovering,” Kakashi counters, but Minato takes a moment to think about the way the three of them are standing stiffly, shoulder to shoulder behind the two girls at the mirror. 

Maybe they are hovering. 

Minato shifts his feet and fiddles with an edge of his Hokage robe. He’s found it strangely difficult to speak today and he really hopes the lump in his throat will ease up by the time he gives the first day speech ahead of them. 

“Right,” Rin cuts back with a chuckle. She turns her attention to her charge. “Are you excited, Naru-chan?”

“Hm?” the girl hums, breaking her concentration on watching Rin’s nimble fingers in her hair. “Oh, yeah! Sasuke will be there. Ino, Hinata, and Shika too.”

Minato doesn’t miss the way Obito and Kakashi both tense at the Nara heir’s nickname, but he shoves the thought aside. Naru is six, not sixteen. She loves her friends. It’s perfectly innocent. 

Even then, Minato’s bet would be on Sasuke. Fugaku’s attempt at a marriage contract is still too fresh in his memories.

When Rin is finished, Naru beams at her and gives her a quick hug around the neck before barreling over to the boys. 

“Very nice.”

“You’re so pretty, Naru-hime!” 

Minato crouches, letting Naru encroach into his space to lean against him with her hip. She’s watching him with careful eyes and he fights the war with whatever is internally strangling him and keeping him from speaking. 

“You look beautiful,” he says finally, his voice cracking just in time for him to realize just how emotional he is over her growing up. He tucks a few stray hairs behind her ear and her smile is so pure it  _ guts  _ him. “Just like your mom.”

She attaches herself to him then. They walk part of the way to the Academy that way, Naru safely bundled in Minato’s arms, even though she’s started telling them that she’s too big for that now. Minato doesn’t complain. When the Academy comes into view, he has to set her down and she moves to Kakashi’s side, grabbing his hand before reaching out to take Obito’s with her other. 

Minato’s speech is made on a podium in front of the small crowd of students and parents. Mercifully, he doesn’t choke up again, but when his eyes fall on his little girl still holding onto his two students’ hands, he almost breaks. 

Still, it’s not until she spots Sasuke and bolts away from them to go to her friend that he lets out the quivering breath he’s held in all morning. 

  
  
  


If Minato finds a way to slip away from his work coincidentally around the same time Naru is let out of school that is neither here nor there. Shikaku bullies him over it for all of three minutes before following him from the tower over to the school grounds to pick up Shikamaru as well. The two of them are inevitably delayed by passerbyers who stop to greet their Hokage and Minato pushes his eager tension down as far as he can to offer his villagers the attention they deserve. 

Still, it’s difficult not to sprint the last leg of the way. 

Shikaku parts with him wordlessly, finding Shikamaru laying in the grass beside a snacking Chouji and Minato briefly wonders if the boys are waiting for someone else to come retrieve them or if they’re just lazing about after school. 

It takes longer than Minato would like to find the shock of blonde hair amidst all the lingering students outside the Academy. Finally, he finds Kakashi leaning against the base of a tree, Naru sitting prim on the single swing before him. He didn’t notice her at first because of the dark-haired figure blocking his line of sight. The closer he comes, the more dark-haired figures are added to the scene. 

“-really wasn’t anything good about your first day, hime?” Obito’s voice falls on him as he nears. Minato glances up at the branch above to find his student as well as his cousin both in unnecessarily ridiculous positions. Obito lays flat on his stomach, limbs dangling down just as Shisui’s torso does from where he’s hanging upside down by his knees. 

“No!” Naru pouts, not noticing him yet. In fact, she and Sasuke, the figure originally blocking him from seeing his daughter, are likely the only ones who haven’t noticed his approach. The girl kicks the dirt beneath her. “I already knew everything.”

Sasuke whips his head over to the side. “Why can’t we graduate like you did, Nii-san?”

Itachi sits in the shade off to the side, watching the two children of the group carefully and protectively, as if he’s not a child of nine years old himself. “Because we’re not at war.”

“And it’s good to just be a kid!” Shisui adds from above, showing off his chubby eleven year old cheeks with a broad grin. “Itachi and I don’t get to play around like you guys do, you know.”

Sasuke pouts at this, opening his mouth for a quick retort, but that’s the exact moment Naru notices Minato’s presence in the sun, just outside their shelter of leaves. She leaps off the swing, startling Sasuke who steps closer to his brother, and runs toward him.

“Tou-san!” she shouts, taking a bounding jump up into his arms, trusting that he’ll always catch her. The small moment feels precious to him after his first day of knowing she’s one step closer to being a ninja herself. “What are you doing here?”

He smiles at her softly, tugging her long braid over her shoulder. “I wanted to see how your first day went, but it seems you didn’t like it very much,” he says, deciding to try to bait her one last time. “Are you sure you want to be a ninja? There’s lots of other-”

“Of course I want to be a ninja!” she counters quickly, completely indignant. “Class is easy,” she smirks, sunlight gleaming in her crystal eyes. “I’ll graduate in no time, Tou-san. Just you wait!” 

A sigh escapes him and he feels the weight of Kakashi’s gaze. He lays a quick kiss on her temple. “I know, hime. I know.”

  
  
  


Six months later, Minato comes home from work to a quiet house. 

Jiraiya is at the kitchen table, a low rumbling hum leaving his chest as he scans over the mess of papers splayed out before him. Whether he’s working on a novel or a seal, Minato doesn’t know. Kakashi is draped across the couch with his nose in a book, mask still on per usual, however he’s stowed his flak jacket away for the night. 

It’s quiet.

Too quiet.

Now, there are nights where Naru is absorbed in something or other-- usually one of Kakashi’s careful teachings or a meticulous plan for a prank-er, trap. However tonight Minato knows Naru is supposed to have a few girls over from the Academy for a sleepover since the conversation with Kakashi over guarding said event took much longer than Minato thought should really be necessary, what with that being Kakashi’s literal job. If there’s anything Minato has learned in the almost-seven years of fatherhood under his belt, it’s that a large group of little girls is  _ not  _ quiet. 

Especially seeing as Naru has taken a liking to Inoichi’s daughter, whose personality really speaks for itself. 

Minato doesn’t leave the doorway when he asks the room, “Anyone wanna tell me why I can sense my daughter alone in her room instead of having the sleepover she’s been asking for since the second week of school?”

Kakashi turns the page in his book and Jiraiya’s shoulders tense.

Minato narrows his eyes at them, knowing they can feel the weight of his disappointment. 

“Maa, Sensei,” Kakashi finally says, still not looking up from his book. “She wouldn’t tell us what happened.”

Now Minato really frowns at them as he steps further into the room, centering himself between the two men and silently demanding their attention. He receives it slowly, Kakashi lowering his book to his chest and Jiraiya turning around in his seat. They avoid his eyes. 

“So you’re telling me that Naru is sad enough to  _ not  _ tell you all about it and to hide in her room and the both of you had just planned to sit here ignoring her?”

The refrigerator ticks in the silence that follows. 

Minato’s brow twitches. 

Jiraiya finally sucks in a deep breath and leans back in his chair. “We tried, Minato. She wasn’t crying and she didn’t want to talk about it.”

“She’s six,” he counters. “Does that sound normal to you?”

“No.” Kakashi has the dignity to look shameful as he sits up on the couch, resting his elbows on his knees with a defeated look in his eyes. “But I offered her time with Bull and some dango and she didn’t budge. Said she wanted to read in her room.”

A moment passes where Minato debates his anger, eventually deciding that the both of them look like they’ve suffered enough with a genuine sense of worry-- a theory that’s supported by the fact that Jiraiya is even still here rather than off wandering in Tsunade’s shadow, as he so often does these days. 

“Fine,” he says. “I’ll go talk to her.”

They watch him go, following his path until he disappears up the stairs. Minato keeps his knock gentle, but not too gentle to make her think he’s pitying her or expects her to be too sad. Just because he’s racking his mind over what could have possibly upset his precious daughter enough that she might have actually cancelled her long-awaited sleepover doesn’t mean she needs to know about it. 

But what if it wasn’t her that cancelled? What if it was her friends? What if she was being bullied at school? Ostracized? No-- there’s no way. Not only is she far more personable than he was at her age, but she’s already been friends with a lot of the kids in her class since they were three. 

The door opens and a pair of blue eyes peer up at him quietly. 

They’re just a tiny bit too shiny for his liking. 

“Hey,” he tries, stepping into the room as she backs away to let him in. “Whatcha doin?”

She climbs onto her bed, right into the skewed blankets that show how long she’d already been sitting against the wall, and tugs on the open scroll laying in wait. He peeks at it, recognizing his own handwriting in one of the beginners sealing notes he’d made for her shortly after she’d started at the Academy. He smiles at her softly when she answers. 

“Just reading.”

He follows her to the bed, perching on its edge. “I thought tonight was your big sleepover?” 

“Nah,” she says, her eyes down on the scroll as one of her hands fidgets with the hem of her thin, orange dress. “I decided I wanted to come home and work on my seals.”

“Oh?” He touches the corner of her scroll, garnering her attention. “What made you decide that?”

She frowns for too long and he can practically see her answer bubbling up and swelling inside her. 

“It’s not a big deal,” she says finally, looking away from him again. She picks at a stray thread, tugging it from her skirt until it’s free. 

Minato sucks in a deep breath and slides back on the bed, leaning against the wall right beside her. “It kinda feels like a big deal.” She shrugs with one shoulder, a habit she’s picked up from Kakashi, no doubt. He brings a hand up to her hair, holding her head in his hand. “You know you can talk to me about anything, right? Even if it’s bad.” 

She freezes in place for a moment, still frowning, before she lays against his side. 

“I don’t want to make Tou-san sad,” she whispers as he wraps his arm around her, holding her to him. 

“Why would I be sad?” he asks, trying to stave off the rush of worry that something like that gives him. 

“Ino and… and  _ her  _ friends...” she says, her hushed voice drifting. “They only want to be my friend because of you. Everybody does.”

A shock runs through him and he quickly shakes it away, bending to look down at her. “That’s not true. Your friends love you, Naru-chan.”

“But I  _ heard  _ them.”

His brows draw together. “Who’s them? You heard them say what?”

“ _ Everybody _ ,” she tells him, like it must be obvious. “They only play with me and do what I want because my tou-san is the Hokage. I don’t want friends like that.”

A cold, heavy stone settles in Minato’s gut. Of all the things he’s worried about for her in regards to his position, this has never been one of them. He kisses the top of her head slowly, thinking out his next words. 

“Friendships can take time. The more they get to know you, the more they’ll know you for you,” he says. “And besides that, I’m sure Sasuke isn’t your friend because of me. Itachi too. Not to mention you have Kakashi and Obito and Rin. Even Genma is your friend now, ne?”

“Genma just picks on me!” She jerks up, an angry pinch in her brows, but Minato is just glad to see her sadness wane a little bit. 

He chuckles lightly, raising his hand up to her hair again. “And,” he says, “no matter how many friends you have or don’t have, you’ll always have me. And I’ll always love you more than anyone else ever can.”

She blinks up at him and the glistening is back in her eyes, but this time Minato doesn’t mind it quite as much. Then she latches her arms around his middle, burying her face in his chest so her response is a little muffled, but he doesn’t mind that much either.

“I love you, Tou-san.”

  
  
  
  
  


It’s June of Naru’s second year at the Academy when Itachi leaps into his office through the window, interrupting a jounin briefing between Minato and Shikaku, something highly unlike the ten year old. Both himself and Shikaku pause, withholding their frowns, but when Minato opens his mouth to ask Itachi what on earth he’s doing, Itachi beats him to it.

“Naru-chan was taken.”

A pulse of chakra bursts out of Minato before he can even think to stop it. Shikaku and Itachi both straighten where they stand, watching their Hokage with rapt, meticulous attention. It takes half a second for Minato to work his jaw before he’s on his feet.

“Report.”

Itachi doesn’t miss a beat. “Namikaze Naruto was taken from the schoolyard approximately six minutes ago. Uchiha Sasuke has a code of chakra flares to gain mine and Uchiha Shisui’s attention, which he activated. Shisui and I arrived at the scene approximately two minutes after the disappearance. Shisui immediately left to notify Hatake Kakashi to track her while I came here. Sasuke is assisting his teacher in searching the school grounds while the rest of their class-”

But Minato doesn’t listen to another word.

Instead he reaches for the seal marker in his senses, the one he’s been searching for ever since Itachi said the word  _ taken _ . 

He’s gone in a flash. 

The bodies around him freeze at his presence and he distantly acknowledges what his killing intent must feel like to the surrounding shinobi. The forest is dense and green with life around them and Minato hates to bring death to such a place, but circumstances simply won’t allow an alternative.

How unfortunate. 

Without a pause, there’s a kunai in Minato’s hand and then it’s in the back of the Iwa ninja in front of him, impaling him straight through to the heart. As he drops, Minato snatches the kicking and screaming seven year old off of his shoulder before whipping around to throw his kunai at the next target. The man dodges, but Minato flashes to the new point in less than a breath, taking Naru with him. 

Then he slits the man’s throat. 

Of the two remaining shinobi, one tries to flee while the other stands stock still, gaping at the wrath of the Hokage they’ve just unleashed. Minato doesn’t bother with that one. Not yet. Instead, he throws his kunai once more, flashing to catch up with the runner. In one blow, he’s down and Minato settles himself with ignoring the last Iwa ninja after sensing a familiar chakra catching their trail and closing in. 

Instead, he turns his attention to his daughter. 

He drops to his knees, slowly at first, then all at once, steadying her on her feet so he can look directly into her eyes. Too fast, he tucks her loose hair away from her face, running his hands over her cheeks too many times. 

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” 

Naru stares at him for a moment in shock, her skin a little pale, likely from experiencing his Hiraishin for the first time. Then she leans forward until she practically falls against him. She doesn’t cry, doesn’t even shake, but she presses herself into him, not letting a breath of space between them. 

“Naruto,” he whispers into her hair, fully aware that his voice breaks as he does. “I need you to tell me if you’re hurt. Are you okay?” 

She tightens her arms around his neck before she answers, the pressure of her face tucked into his shoulder almost drowning out her hushed words. 

“Tou-san, that was  _ really  _ cool.”

Later that night, after taking Naru back to work with him and not letting her leave his sight unless she had to go to the bathroom wherein a female Anbu agent was brought in to escort her, Minato summons Itachi and Kakashi to his living room. Itachi reports promptly while Kakashi shuffles out of his bedroom with a little more rust in his joints than normal, the tension of the day wearing on his eighteen year old shoulders. 

“Itachi-kun,” Minato says, “I know you were recently promoted to jounin and have put in a request to Anbu.”

“Hai, Hokage-sama.”

“I have reason to believe that your family would be happier with your placement there than you would. So, I’d like to extend an offer to you to join my personal service. Kakashi can’t guard Naru twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. As we now know, there will always be a target on her back because of me. Should you accept this position as one of Naru’s personal guards, you’ll take the morning shift through the Academy school day-- where you can coincidentally also keep an eye on Sasuke.”

Itachi blinks at him and, if this were any other day, Minato would have smiled at him. But it’s not any other day. It’s the day his seven year old daughter was kidnapped. 

So he levels Itachi with his eyes. 

“I take this position very, very seriously.” 

There’s a silence and then, “I accept, Hokage-sama.” 

“Good,” Minato says simply. “Now let’s coordinate the two of your schedules more meticulously.” 

  
  
  
  


“Tou-san! Tou-san!” 

Minato looks up from the dishes as Naru runs in from the backyard. Her thick braid is coming undone, strands of blonde hair like gold slipping out in ribbons around her sun-kissed face. She beams at him. 

“Come look!” she begs him, gesturing with a hand for him to  _ hurry up! _

He raises a brow at her. “Look at what?”

“No, just come! You have to see!” 

An amused smile slips onto his skeptical face and he dries his hands to follow her out back. Kakashi is waiting beneath the single tree left behind when the home was constructed. There’s a glint in his eyes when Minato looks at him that strikes him as suspicious, but he already knows that Kakashi has started to occasionally train his eight year old daughter outside of school. Her complaints about how boring it is would have worn him down too. 

Well,  _ have  _ worn him down. 

He’s still making her hand-written scrolls on sealing. 

But Kakashi is now blatantly avoiding his eye contact, so Minato is understandably suspicious about what Naru’s nii-san has taught her. 

Naru makes a beeline for the tree, her smile still bright and blinding. She checks over her shoulder to make sure that Minato is watching closely before turning back to the tree. 

The moment she raises her foot, Minato knows what’s about to happen. 

He wants to  _ glare  _ at Kakashi, but there’s also a part of him genuinely curious to see if she can really do it. 

Her foot presses against the bark of the tree where she leaves it for a few breaths. Then she takes her other foot off the ground. 

And walks up the tree. 

At eight years old. 

_ It’s fine _ , he tells himself, more and more stupefied with every step she takes.  _ There are children who graduate younger than she is. It’s just tree walking. Nothing insanely dangerous. _

Except it is.

Minato sighs, but grins along with her when she reaches the top and let’s herself hang from the underside of a branch. She’s glowing and cheering and laughing and he’s desperately hoping she doesn’t fall. Not because he’s afraid she’ll be hurt, but because she wants to keep Kakashi’s arms empty for when he tackles him to the ground. 

Still, he can’t help but wonder how quickly she’ll progress at the rate she’s going. 

  
  
  
  


At the end of Naru’s second year at the Academy, Kakashi and Obito come into his office.

_ Through the door. _

Minato is concerned. 

He immediately tucks his paperwork to the side, glancing between them to search for signs of an emergency. Though their faces are grave, neither is rushing or overly tense, even though their broad shoulders are a little too straight-backed as they stand side by side. The gangly teenage years are leaving them, Obito more so at the age of twenty one. Kakashi is still a little lanky at nineteen, but his height has caught up with his male teammate’s and will likely surpass him in the next few years. 

The fact that they were dropping off Naru at school together today is not lost on him and does little to soothe his sudden, unyielding concern. 

Obito hasn’t even burst into a story yet. 

“Okay, what the hell is going on?” Minato finally cracks and both boys frown. 

Not helping.

“It’s nothing… urgent,” Kakashi says.

Obito clenches his jaw before relaxing it. “We want to suggest that you walk Naru-hime home from school today.”

What?

“What?”

Kakashi blinks and Obito shifts on his feet.

“There’s just,” Kakashi says, “something that you need to see.”

Minato throws a kunai at them and they shunshin away. 

His mood is virtually ruined for the rest of the day as he anxiously awaits for school to let out. Just in case, he arrives early, using a Hiraishin to completely avoid Shikaku’s needless checking in on him. Itachi is inside the school with her; Minato can feel his chakra in the same proximity as her, so he attempts to relax a little. It doesn’t work. Soon, he feels Kakashi and Obito’s chakra in the vicinity, but they don’t approach him.

He hopes that they have a good reason for getting on his nerves today with their ridiculously unnatural behavior. 

And then class lets out. There’s a mad dash from the older students while the youngest start looking amongst the gathered adults for their parents. It’s not until nearly everyone has trickled out that Naru appears in the doorway. 

Holding Sasuke’s hand. 

Minato blinks. 

And blinks  _ again _ . 

Nope. Still holding hands. 

Is this his fault? Was it the playdates? Maybe he shouldn’t have enrolled her so early. She could have waited until she was eight like everyone else. Maybe he shouldn’t have approved for so many of her friends to enroll with her once their parents had heard of her early admission. Maybe he should have pulled a few strings to get them into separate classes. Maybe if he-

“Tou-san!” 

Naru runs to him across the yard, dragging along a semi-scowling Sasuke, apparently unhappy with being jostled. Minato tries not to stare at their joined hands. 

“Naruto,” he says and she stiffens, recognizing what the use of her full name means. 

“Yes, Tou-san?”

“Why are you and Sasuke holding hands?”

She tilts her head like a puppy, scrunching up her features. “Cause Sasuke’s my boyfriend.”

Minato almost hears the audible snap of his brain being shut down. 

“Excuse me?”

She perks up on her tiptoes, waving for him to bend down closer while still relentlessly holding onto the Uchiha boy. He bends and she covers her mouth with a hand to whisper a secret. “Sasuke has lots of crazy fangirls. They go away if I’m holding his hand ‘cause they don’t want to upset the Hokage’s daughter.”

A cough catches in Minato’s throat as he pops back up to full height. 

“How… manipulative.”

Naru waves him off just as she finds Kakashi and Obito off behind him, so she drags Sasuke over to them next, leaving Minato staring straight ahead at Itachi being left in their dust.

Understandably, Itachi winces. 

Minato shares the sentiment. 

  
  
  
  


When Naru is nine she starts to beg for an early graduation. 

Minato refuses, even though Kakashi, Itachi, Obito, Rin, and Jiraiya are all suspiciously quiet when the topic emerges. But there’s no way Minato will let his nine year old become an adult in the eyes of a shinobi. Sure, her designated graduation time is only in another year and a half, but that time matters! 

To quell her haggling -- which eventually turns into Fugaku haggling for Sasuke as well, coincidentally, of course -- he decides to work on her sealing with her a little more closely. A second desk is added to the Hokage’s office and, while Naru still keeps all of his hand-written scrolls at home, she brings her more general studies on the subject to work with him when she’s done with school. 

Unfortunately this also means Minato sees Sasuke every day around three in the afternoon, but he leaves quickly enough afterwards with no incident so he lets it slide. 

“Oooh, Tou-san, look,” she says, breaking into his focus on his financial documents for the civilian market district. She hops up from her seat across the room, laying down a piece of sealing paper on his desk with her ink-stained fingers. 

He tilts his head, studying it for a moment before his eyes suddenly widen. 

“How did you do this?”

She preens, completely ignoring the terror in his voice. “I just combined a few things! I know I have to be careful on the second layer after a few, um, experiments that didn’t go so well with Nii-san. So! I just simplified the strokes for containment and added  _ this  _ matrix to the fourth layer, and, yeah, that’s it. Whad’ya think?” 

Minato stares at the first original seal he’s seen Naru make since her first orange glitter exploding tag and tries to decide whether he’s horrified or impressed. 

“Why does it let you attach a secondary seal if this is for trapping?”

Naru plants both her hands on the edge of his desk and grins at him with a look that strikes him somewhere in his chest, shifting something. He can’t… quite place it. 

“For my glitter bombs! Or, you know, regular bombs.”

And then he realizes it.

She’s becoming a shinobi. 

  
  
  
  


“You have enough clothes?” 

“Yes, Tou-san.”

“Do you want to take any more ration bars?”

“No, Tou-san.”

“What about your whetstone?” 

“I have it, but I don’t think I’ll need it-”

“It’s always better to be prepared! You never know-”

“Minato!” 

He snaps his eyes up to Jiraiya’s, his hands freezing on the edges of Naru’s jacket. 

“She’ll be fine,” Jiraiya says, settling his palm atop Naru’s head. Rin and Genma already stopped by to say goodbye. Kakashi and Obito both got their hugs in and are now standing back toward the kitchen behind them. Naru went over to Sasuke’s house to train with him and Itachi as a goodbye yesterday after school. 

It’s Minato’s turn.

He’s struggling. 

“Should I come too?” he asks no one and everyone. “I should come too. I-”

“Minato,” Jiraiya says again, moving his hand to Minato’s shoulder. “It’s just a few weeks. She’ll be back before you know it.”

He feels his head nodding listlessly before it stops. “What if we’re rushing this? What if she’s too young?” 

“ _ Tou-san, _ ” Naru whines. 

“It’s this or the Hiraishin with the speed she’s flying through your sealwork,” Jiraiya answers with a dry chuckle. “The toads will take care of her.  _ I  _ will take care of her. We’ll be back in no time.”

Minato watches his sensei for a long time, judging the truth in his words despite the fact that he has full faith in the man and knows that he’s right. He chews his lip for a second before dropping down to a crouch, ignoring Naru’s pout to tuck some of her hair behind her ears and out of her face. 

“Be good for Ma and Pa, okay? Jiraiya too.”

It takes a moment for her pout to melt away, but eventually it softens. “I will, Tou-san.”

“I’ll miss you.”

Naru leans in and kisses his nose. 

“I’ll be fine, Tou-san.”

  
  
  
  


Minato appears in the Chunin exam stands via Hiraishin. 

Luckily, the group he’s joining is used to his sudden appearances. 

“Yo!” He grins, magnetically reaching for his daughter who steps into the gesture and wraps her arms around his waist. She’s ten now and hitting a growth spurt, now as tall as Sasuke beside her, but Minato doubts that will last. She was always such a small baby and toddler. Kakashi and Rin both wave to him while Obito chirps out a quick,  _ Hiya Sensei!  _

Minato’s guard platoon appears behind him a moment later and then Genma, Raidou, Shisui, and Iwashi spread out around the group from Konoha to take in their new surroundings. 

“Anything fun happen yet?”

“No,” Naru says with a frown, stepping away from him to return to Sasuke’s side. Mercifully, it seems their ‘fake dating’ is authentic. He’s never witnessed more than hand holding and only when they’re at school. Still, Minato keeps an eye on the boy and  _ briefs  _ Itachi on his feelings on the matter occasionally. 

“ _ Thankfully  _ no,” Rin corrects for Naru, her eyes flickering over to Genma nearby. “The third round should start in an hour or two.”

Minato nods. “How’s Suna?”

“Hot,” Obito grumbles, crossing his arms until he realizes that only amplifies his body heat. He drops his hands to his sides. 

“Everything’s fine,” Kakashi says from his place between his teammates. “There was a bit of a commotion during Naru and Gaara’s reunion, but all has settled since.”

A frown pulls at Minato’s cheeks and he looks over at Naru. She makes a flippant hand gesture and shows him a cheeky smile. “I was just a little excited is all.”

It takes a minute for him to nod at her in answer, his nerves wound a little tight ever since she came back from Mt. Myouboku with the knowledge of the fox inside her. Minato had always intended to tell her when she became a genin, but apparently everything for Naru is on a much faster schedule than his own. The idea that she’s in contact with a demon keeps him up at night, but she assures him that she  _ likes  _ the fox. 

She says it’s nice to meet someone who doesn’t automatically like her because of her father. 

Minato has lost sleep over that too. 

But ever since then he’s found himself fretting over any time she shows an intense emotion, as if one day his seal will suddenly crack open because she’s getting to have ramen for the third time that week. It’s irrational, but stranger and less likely things have happened to Minato. He stays vigilant. And it doesn’t hurt that Itachi spends a little extra guard time with her now so there’s usually a Sharingan nearby, just in case. 

“I need to get to the other Kage’s,” he tells them all, changing the subject rather sharply. 

They nod and say their farewells, but Naru creeps closer to him. 

“Are you still gonna work on… you know, the  _ thing  _ with me after this?”

Minato sighs, catching the signals to depart from his guards in the corner of his eye. 

“You’re still on about that, huh?”

“I can do it! I swear!” 

He scans her face, taking in her soft features so much like Kushina’s, her blonde hair as bright as the sun and blue eyes as endless as the ocean. Graduation is coming up on them too soon. 

Naru is ready. 

Even ready to start learning the Hiraishin. 

Minato, however, is not. 

He traces a thumb over her whisker marks and tucks a few pieces of her hair behind her ear. 

“I wish you’d slow down a little more before speeding up quite so much.”

Naru smiles at him, wide open and full of love. 

“What do you expect, Tou-san? I am your daughter.”

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to harrass me on twitter - @jarynw02


End file.
